Profile in courage

There seemed to be several hundred kids on the sprawling soccer fields of Oakland University that muggy July evening, but I picked out Thea from about five hundred yards away. There was no mistaking her trademark all-legs lankiness, swirling copper hair, or reckless abandon.

Her team, "Scotland," was winning its Mini-World Cup final. Thea waved to us from her sweeper position then redirected her attention to the pitch.

Her coach, Billy Gilmore, a ruddy, paunchy, balding, thin-legged Englishman in his latter forties or early fifties, strolled up and down the sidelines in a white T-shirt and blue shorts, whistle in hand, checking his clock and pronouncing his judgments with cordial calls of Play on! ... Free kick! ... Well done!

He shouted "Well done, Thea!" after Thea got knocked down hard while tackling the ball away from an opposing player; kept asking her if she was all right after she was back on her feet chasing the action.

Thea assured Coach Gilmore repeatedly that she was fine. But the ferocious collision with her male opponent had hurt her a lot. The boy had basically run right over her. I knew Thea would not cry no matter how much she wanted to: I’d seen her take a vicious ball in the face at age 9 and keep right on going, suppressing the tears-impulse for all she was worth. (That, in an age group where most kids screamed for their mommies and writhed on the ground after stubbing a toe.) Years later I would unknowingly watch Thea play an entire soccer game with a fractured forearm.

So I knew Thea would "play on," which she did.

My feelings at that moment were actually a mixture of pride and shame—pride in Thea's bravery, shame for her parents' oversight in forgetting to include a bottle of sunscreen when helping her pack for a five-day camp. What weren't we thinking? Yup. Poor fair-skinned Thea had been "playing on" most of the week with a painfully sunburned neck, arms, and thighs; paying the price for her parents' pitiable lack of foresight.

Then the match was suddenly over and we were hugging Thea and apologizing all over ourselves for her salmon-colored skin.

There was a short farewell ceremony at a distant set of bleachers, where awards and certificates got handed out.

Thea, unfazed by physical insults ranging from stomped-on to sunburnt, began crying at that point—dismayed and deflated by the average grades she'd received from Coach Gilmore in the skills section of her final evaluation form.

Walking back to the van, I tried as best I could to help her see the light: Coach Gilmore's "average" ratings had all been levied in things like passing and dribbling—things she could readily improve through dedication and practice.

In truth, Thea had succeeded well past admirably in all the categories that mattered more—in life as well as in soccer. Had received uniformly glowing praise from Coach Billy Gilmore for demonstrating, for example, the courage and determination to get back up and play on whenever a boy ran over her head.

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